Title: Laurel
Author: Private Rickmers
Keywords: MF, hist, nosex, rom, viol
Summary: Some women can never be forgotten.
Copyright: 2013


     Fog covered the top of the Washington Cathedral that Sunday
afternoon in fall as I climbed the steps beneath the North Rose
Window. I remember hearing the Cathedral bells, high above, lost
in fog, announcing the beginning of the Evening Worship Service.
I was also aware of the wound left by an AK-47 round when my
platoon was nearly overrun in Vietnam. That sounds heroic. It
felt differently. When I was in the field I was tired,
uncomfortable, and afraid most of the time. I simply tried to
survive. I also tried to remember why I had gone. What I went
over to prove about myself did not matter when I came back. What
I went over to escape from was waiting for me when I did.

     As I reached the top of the stairs an elderly gentleman gave
me a program for the day's services. He wore a dark blue topcoat
over what I somehow assumed to be a three-piece suit. He seemed
to have lost weight as he got older, and what had once been
craggy, aristocratic good looks now appeared tired.

     I took the program and entered the Cathedral. The floor,
which I remembered from childhood to be concrete, had been
recently paved with brown and tan marble tiles. The Cathedral
does not have pews, but wooden chairs, and I reclined into one of
them feeling an exhaustion that sleep could not cure. The
Cathedral choir was singing "Bogoroditse Devo" from the
Rachmaninov Vespers. I still have the program for the service.
The ethereal strains rose to the ribbed ceiling of the Cathedral
like souls of the dead rising above a cemetery.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQapRbVqLVE

      Closing my eyes I remembered a time in Vietnam when I
regained consciousness on a battlefield after the guns had gone
silent. The sounds of birds, monkeys, and insects, which
disappear when the shooting starts, merged with the scents of
vegetation, both alive and dead. There was also the heat, always
the heat, and my thirst.

     I did not want to call out, because I did not know who had
won the encounter, and who, as a result, owned the field. I was
afraid that if I tried to move part of my body, that part would
turn out to be no longer part of me, or else horribly damaged.
Then I considered that the only pain I felt was an ache in my
head. That made sense, because I had been knocked unconscious.
When I tried to move my toes, I felt them move in my combat
boots. I knew I had toes, feet, and legs. Doing that with my
fingers, I learned the same about them, my hands, and arms.

     Quietly sitting up, I drank from my canteen, and located my
M-16. The magazine still had twenty rounds. I removed an extra
magazine from my belt, so that I could get to it in a hurry. I
did not have was any enthusiasm for more fighting. Nevertheless,
the Communists rarely took prisoners. I did not want to be killed
without a fight. I turned the selector lever forward from the
SEMI to the AUTO position. That way, I could be sure of getting
one or two of them. Considering my circumstances, I did not need
to save my ammunition.

     For good measure, I fixed a bayonet to the end of my rifle.


     It would last a minute. I would empty my magazine, and try
to load the next one. If they gave me a chance to surrender, I
would. If they did not, I would fight. If I fought, I would die.
I could not shoot them all.

     I thought of what they would do to my body. For me, there
would be no funeral in the church where I grew up, no burial at
Arlington National Cemetery, no taps, no rifle salute. Worse yet,
there would be no closure for my parents. I would be missing in
action. As long as they lived, they would hope against hope that
I was still alive, that I would come home.

     I lay on my back, cradling my rifle. It felt like hours. It
might have only been thirty minutes. I heard men walking through
the jungle. When I heard English in the accents of the American
south, relief poured over me like the Potomac River at Great
Falls. Corpsmen were looking for lives to save.

     The only other man they found who was still alive was a Viet
Cong. He was wounded more seriously than I was. Because the U.S.
Marine Corps does take prisoners, the corpsmen patched him up,
and put him in the medevac helicopter that took both of us to a
field hospital.

     All that I needed were a few stitches in my forehead. They
kept me at the hospital two days for observation. The second day
I was there I asked a nurse to get me a package of dried fruit. I
walked over to see how the Viet Cong was doing. His doctor told
me that he would recover, "except for a few picturesque scars to
show the folks back home."

     I gave him the package of dried fruit. He took it with the
hand that was not bandaged. Understanding what I was doing, he
relaxed and said, "American. Thank you."

     That may have been all the English he knew. If I knew
Vietnamese I would have told him that I lacked enthusiasm for the
orders I was required to carry out. I would also have said that
my presence in his country was the result of a number of
mistakes, including my own.

     I envied him. He would not be treated gently in a prisoner
of war camp, but he would not be killed. Unlike me, perhaps, he
would live to return to his family. For him, the war was over.

     For me, the war ended 153 days later, when a passenger jet
took me to Washington National Airport. Out in the field, when I
was counting down the number of days until my return to "the
world," which was what we called the United States, the bar at
Washington National Airport attained mythic proportions. That was
because I stopped there before leaving for Vietnam. For me, that
bar symbolized surviving the war. I kept trying to remember what
it looked like. I imagined myself sitting there, drinking a glass
of wine, telling people about my exploits.


     Now that I was there, everything felt anti-climatic.
Contrary to urban legend, no one spit at me, or called me a baby
killer. I might have appreciated the attention. There I sat in my
freshly laundered and ironed Marine uniform, with my lance
corporal stripes. My shoes were so shiny you could see your
reflection in them. I had my campaign ribbon from Vietnam, a
marksmanship badge, a National Defense Service Medal, a Combat
Action Ribbon, a good conduct ribbon given somewhat gratuitously,
and a Purple Heart with a Gold Star that I earned.

     No one cared. When I got to the bar, a pretty girl was
sitting by herself. Because she did not look back at me, I tried,
with considerable effort, and less success, not to look at her.
Her boy friend came for her. He was a civilian, wearing a modish
business suit, with a broad, floral tie. They shared a drink, and
a kiss, and left.

     Another pretty girl walked by without stopping. Because she
made a point of looking straight ahead, I did not try to talk to
her.

     A young man about my age sat down. He looked the way I
thought a student radical would look, with longish hair, a blue
worker's shirt, and worn, blue, bellbottom trousers. I smiled at
him somewhat awkwardly, and said, "Hi."  I wanted to tell him
that I more or less agreed with the opinions that I projected
onto him, or was at least willing to consider agreement. He also
avoided talking to me.

     Finally, my father came to drive me home. Dad fought in
World War II. He was good at controlling his emotions. So was I.
"Hi, Rodger," he said, shaking my hand.

     "Hi, Dad," I replied, "How's Mom?"


     "She's fine. Do you have everything?"

     "It's over there," I said, pointing to my sea bag.

     I tipped the bar tender with a one dollar bill. The bar
tender tapped them on the counter twice, and said, "Welcome home,
Marine."  He had short, blond hair, a white shirt, open at the
neck, and looked the right age to have fought in Korea. He knew.


     As the service began I became aware of a young lady about
seven rows of chairs ahead of me. Her reddish-blond hair flowed
over her shoulders like the Potomac River at Little Falls. In an
Episcopal service one frequently changes one's position from
sitting to standing, to kneeling, and back again. Thus I was able
to observe that her skin was fair enough to seem translucent, and
that her body was almost too thin, but well-proportioned. This
was covered by a modest blue dress that turned her appearance
into a tasteful advertisement.

     While putting on her coat when the service was over, she
unexpectedly turned around and looked at me. She even seemed to
like what she saw. I was not sure why. I was wearing a white
shirt and tie, but they obviously had not been purchased at
Woodward and Lothrop. My Navy pea coat showed its age and origins
in an Army surplus store. Our story happens during the late
1970's. Poverty, being less obviously a choice than it had been a
decade earlier, was no longer fashionable.

     Also, I was embarrassed by my behavior. I had been staring
at her. Turning away I walked in the opposite direction. Sometime
later I found myself in the Cathedral Museum Shop that is
underneath the nave of the Cathedral.

     Walking along the shelves of books, crosses, and icons I
found Why I am Not a Christian, by Bertrand Russell. I had
discovered Russell when trying to make sense of the War in
Vietnam and my experiences in it. Because I admired his political
writings I removed the book from the shelf and began to skim the
contents.

     "You might find it interesting."  I looked up and into the
eyes of the woman I had admired upstairs. They were as grey as
the fog outside. Her face was as beautiful as the Cathedral
itself.

     "Did you enjoy reading it?" I asked.

     "I found it interesting."

     "Do you agree?"

     "I have reason to hope he is wrong."

     "So do I," I said.

     "What is it?"

     "I would like to see my parents again, and Steve Reed."

     "Was he a friend of yours?"

     "My best friend in Vietnam. He risked his life to save mine.
Several days later I was unable to do the same for him."

     "That must have been terrible," she said. "Are you angry
about the way the War ended?"

     "I'm just glad that it ended. Let's say, I fought in Vietnam
and lost."

     "You don't look like a loser."

     "No man you smile at can feel like one. It must be getting
dark outside. May I walk to your car with you?"

     "Yes."  When I put the book back on the shelf, she asked,
"You aren't going to buy it?"

     "I might come back for it."

     "I have a copy."

     "Where are you parked?"

     "Along 36th Street."

     Together we climbed the circular stairs to the South
Transept, and crossed the main floor to the North Entrance. The
congregation had greatly thinned out, but some people were still
inspecting statues and stain glass windows. I wanted them to
think we were a couple.

     I opened the door beneath the North Rose Window for her and
we stepped out. The sky was darker. The fog was thicker. The air
was colder and smelled like the inside of a refrigerator.

     We walked along 36th Street passing the stately, early
twentieth century homes. "Are we getting far from your car?" she
asked.

     "Actually I don't have one," I answered. "I walked over from
Adams Morgan where I live."

     "A car can be a nuisance in the District," she said. "You
can always take a bus. Metro will be finished pretty soon."

     "I work the graveyard shift at the Airport Motel in
Arlington. Usually I can ride my bicycle. Sometimes I walk."

     "Isn't it dangerous to walk that late?"

     "Compared with what?"

     "Yes, I guess you've faced greater dangers."

     "I am not thinking about them now. What I am thinking is
that this is a tony neighborhood, but it is too dark and foggy
for a woman as beautiful as you are to be walking alone."

     She looked down at the sidewalk. "Thank you."

     Finally we came to her car, a dark blue Volkswagen station
wagon. "My name is Roger Bancroft," I said.

     "I am Laurel. Laurel Armington."

     "May I call you sometime?"

     She opened her purse, retrieved a business card, and wrote
on the back of it by the light of a street lamp. "This is my
phone number at home. If a man answers he is my father. I will
have told him about you."

     "When may I call, Laurel?"

     "Anytime you wish, Roger." After smiling at me she turned
around, got into her car, started it, and drove away. I stood in
the street and watched until she disappeared into the fog.

     Soon later I was walking along Connecticut Avenue on my way
home. I did not, and could not know the people in the cars who
drove by. Nevertheless, they were suddenly dear to me. The fog
had grown so thick that I could not seem them distinctly. In my
mind's eye I saw a portrait of Laurel on the horizon in front of
me. That I could see very distinctly.

     I continued to walk south along Connecticut Avenue, crossing
Taft Bridge over a stretch of Rock Creek Park, which meanders
through Washington as an urban wilderness. Then I turned left to
get to my apartment in the Adams Morgan district.

     I lived in what had been during the nineteenth century a
town house for an upper middle class family. Now it was a rooming
house. I served as manager for reduced rent. Each of the tenants
had one room. We shared bathroom and kitchen facilities, and a
pay telephone.

     One of the tenants was Ken Johnson. He was in late middle
age, and had spent much of his life in reform school and prison.
The passions of youth, which had burned so destructively for him,
were ashes. He worked at an all night diner, and tried to salvage
what remained of his life.

     Bill Donnelly was an Army veteran of the Korean War. Like me
he had been wounded. Unlike me he suffered from post traumatic
stress syndrome. Combat affects men differently. Some enjoy it.
Some are permanently scarred psychologically, even if they are
not hurt physically.

     In my case, I simply did not want to do it again. Also, I no
longer enjoyed watching war movies. Finally, I did not want to
have anything more to do with guns. It would have made sense for
me to buy a twelve gauge pump action shot gun. The Adams Morgan
district had not been gentrified yet. Sometimes criminals would
kick down the door to a house or apartment, kill everyone inside,
and loot the place.

     There were two other men whose names and circumstances I
have forgotten. All of us worked for minimum wage, or little
more.

     Thomas Van Someran was a graduate student at Georgetown
University. His social understanding and social skills were more
useful in an academic environment than in a rooming house full of
low income men who did not much give in their personalities.
Sometimes I had to intervene in a situation that was becoming
dangerous for him.

     I liked Thomas. He seemed to like me. After all, I had taken
courses at Maryland University. I read good books. I shared his
love for classical music.

     I never told them about Laurel. Thomas might have become a
successful rival. The others might have said something coarse.

     When I got into my room, I looked at the card Laurel had
given me. It was a business card for the Episcopal Ministry to
the Aging, which had an office in what had been the Bishop's
Mansion next to the Washington Cathedral. Laurel was a social
worker there.

     Several days later, when no one else was in the rooming
house I called Laurel's telephone number. Her father answered. He
had been told about me, and said, "Laurel will be glad to hear
from you." She was. We agreed to have lunch together the next
week.

     I was a little nervous walking to the Bishop's Mansion where
Laurel worked. My wardrobe, you understand, was limited. I wore
what I had worn to the National Cathedral. So did she. I guess I
was presentable. The receptionist actually seemed to look
enviously at Laurel.

     We walked four blocks to an Italian restaurant I knew that
was on Wisconsin Avenue, and which played arias from Italian
operas. When we entered, the restaurant's music system was
playing  "E lucevan le stelle" which I recognized from Giacomo
Puccini's Tosca. In this Cavaradossi, who has been unjustly
sentenced to death, thinks of the woman he loves, and sings:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxdiJ74AL5Y


     After we entered the restaurant the maitre d' greeted me and
said, "Well, hello Roger."

     "Hi Ben," I said. "We would like a table for two."

     "Of course," Ben said. "Come this way please."

     When we were seated, but before she looked at the menu
Laurel looked around and said, "I love this restaurant.
Everything is so tasteful and elegant. I had no idea this
restaurant was so near my office. I am impressed."

     "Actually, the people who work here are impressed," I said."
If I may say so, they are impressed with you."

     "You may."

     "They know me, but in the past I have come alone."

     "Do you come often?" Laurel asked.

     "Not really, only enough times for them to remember me."

     "That should have only taken one visit."

     "Tell me about your job."

     "The Episcopal Ministry to the Aging helps elderly church
members who lack other support systems. I make home visits, and
visits to hospitals, nursing homes, and senior citizens
apartments. Sometimes I am the only visitor they have. I have
held several while they died. I find it satisfying. I think I
would enjoy growing old."

      "There have been times when I wanted to get one day older."


      "I can imagine. Tell me about your job."

     "There is not much to say. I work the graveyard shift at the
Airport Motel in Arlington. When I get there I compute the daily
transcript while listening to Johnny Carson. Then I read while
listening to music on WETA or WGMS. Customers usually stop coming
after about 2:00 AM. The owner lets me take a nap behind the
counter until people begin to check out around 6:00.

     "If I stay at the job I will try to take courses in hotel
management."

     I did not tell her about the time two teenagers walked in
and robbed me at gunpoint. They only had one pistol. If I thought
the youth with the gun was going to use it I was going to try to
grab the barrel, and bend it back against his finger, breaking
the bone. I probably could have taken both of them. Fortunately,
all they wanted was the money in the cash register.

     After that happened, the owner of the motel fixed up things
so that I could take money or credit cards from guests and give
them keys without letting them into the motel office.

     A week later I was asked to come to a police station and
look at photos of possible suspects. There were several who
looked similar to the robbers, but I was not sure.

     I have been mugged several times. Once, two police officers
beat me up in South East Washington near Capital Hill. I never
knew why they did it. I wore a beard back then, and my hair was
longer. Maybe they thought I was someone else. I never reported
the incident. There were no witnesses. They had taken off their
badges, so I could not identify them. Low income people live
dangerous lives.

     When I walked back to the Bishop's Mansion with Laurel I
asked if I could see her again. She said I could.

     Two weeks later I learned that Mitch Snyder of the Community
for Creative Non Violence was going to speak at the Potter's
House. This was and is a coffee house on Columbia Road near
Sixteenth Street. It was started in 1960, and served various
kinds of coffee like cappuccino and café au lait. Before
Starbucks there was the Potter's House.

     The Potter's House used to have half hour talks by various
people on various subjects. These would begin at 7:00 PM. They
would be followed by a half hour question and answer period. The
talks were recorded, and broadcast later on in the week on WETA.

     I had learned about the Community for Creative Non Violence
at an earlier talk at the Potter's House. At the time the CCNV
was, if you can imagine such a thing, a Roman Catholic urban
commune engaged in anti war activism. They lived in a brownstone
mansion off Washington Circle near George Washington University.
Sometimes I would attend folk masses there on Sunday afternoon.
More recently they had moved to 14th Street, NW.

     When I asked Laurel if she would like to listen to Mitch's
talk she said it sounded interesting, and said she would like to
introduce me to her father.

     I could have borrowed Thomas' car, but Laurel and her father
drove to the Potter's House by themselves. Mr. Armington had a
lively face that projected intelligence. He was lean. Although he
may have been about sixty years old, his body had an energy that
seemed to emanate from his mind.

     When we entered the Potter's House the sound system was
playing "In the Early Morning Rain," with Peter, Paul, & Mary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY_iq7pvzXg

     When we were seated Laurel told me that her father taught
classical languages at Georgetown University.

     "When I was at the University of Maryland," I began, "we
read Homer's Iliad in a literature class. I liked the part where
King Agamemnon said to the Greek soldiers, `Men we're never going
to take Troy. Our families fear for our lives. Too many of us
have died. Let's go home.' That was the way a lot of us felt in
Vietnam.

     "The soldiers started to run back to their ships. Of course,
Agamemnon did not really mean that. He expected his men to demand
to stay and fight. As they ran he ran with them and said, `Hey
wait a minute.'

     "One of the things I appreciated about the Iliad is that
Homer did not take sides in the Trojan War. You would expect him
to side with the Greeks because he was Greek, but he portrayed
the Trojan War as morally complex, tragic, and futile. My
favorite character was Hector, the champion of the Trojans. His
was not a happy ending."

     "That is an interesting aspect of the Iliad," Professor
Armington said. "You should compare it with The Song of Roland.
That is about a battle that happened in the eighth century
between the Franks and the Muslims who had conquered Spain. The
Muslims are described as barely human.

     "The Greek tragic dramatists agreed with Homer about the
Trojan War," Professor Armington continued. "My favorite Greek
play is The Trojan Woman, by Euripides. The Greeks have taken
Troy and killed all the men. The women and children are waiting
to be taken back to Greece as slaves. The play concerns the fate
of Astyanax, the son of Hector. Although Astyanax is only a boy,
Odysseus talks the Greeks into killing him so that he will not
avenge the death of his father.

     "The convention of ancient Greek and Roman writers was that
serious literature should concern the period of time from the
creation of the world, to the immediate aftermath of the Trojan
War. However, the old stories could be told in ways that conveyed
contemporary messages. For example, The Trojan Women was written
during the Peloponnesian War, which was fought between Athens and
her allies and Sparta and her allies. The Athenian forces had
just recently sacked the city of a Spartan ally, killed the men,
and carried off the women and children as slaves. The Trojan
Woman was Euripides's message of protest.

     "It is easy for us moderns to condemn the Athenians. That
kind of behavior was universal back then. What made the Athenians
different was that they did not punish Euripides for writing his
play. They performed it and honored him. Unlike everyone else at
the time with the possible exception of the Jews they were
morally evolved enough to examine their behavior."

     Mitch Snyder's talk was about the ways the Community for
Creative Non Violence was helping the homeless population in
Washington, DC. When it was my turn to ask a question I said,
"The Community for Community Non Violence began as an
organization protesting against the War in Vietnam. The anti war
movement was fashionable because fashionable young men studying
at fashionable universities did not want to jeopardize solid gold
futures by risking their lives in Vietnam.

     "I'm not criticizing them," I continued. "I wish I had their
opportunities. However, the homeless are not fashionable. Do you
think you will be as successful in your new cause as you were in
your previous one?"

     Mitch Snyder looked down at the table in front of him for a
long time, and began, "If we in the Community for Creative Non
Violence were mainly interested in being successful we would
probably be doing something else with our lives.

    "Thousands of people in Washington, DC are sleeping outdoors
tonight. Hundreds of thousands share their situation nationally.
Many are combat veterans of Vietnam. They do not know where they
will eat tomorrow, and where they will be when the sun goes down.


     "When Evangelical Christians are faced with a moral dilemma
they often ask themselves, `What would Jesus do?' We in the
Community for Creative Non Violence have asked ourselves the same
question. What we are doing in the Community for Creative Non
Violence is our answer to that question."

     Mitch was loudly applauded. Laurel, her father, and I joined
the applause.

     When the question and answer period was over, Father Ed
Guinan, who had founded the CCNV in 1970, and who I had known
from my previous association with the CCNV, introduced Mitch
Snyder to Laurel, her father, and me. Father Guinan and Professor
Armington already knew each other. I had read about Mitch Snyder
in The Washington Post, but I had never met him before.

     "When I saw you in the audience I told Mitch to get ready
for a tough question," Father Guinan said.

     "I hope it did not sound like a hostile question," I
replied. Everyone here agreed the answer was better than my
question."

     Later I walked with Laurel and her father to their car. Then
I returned to the Potter's House for a cup of cappuccino before
walking to work.

     Two weeks later as I was walking home from work I passed the
Circle Theater. That used to be on Pennsylvania Avenue several
blocks to the west of the White House. The Circle Theater
featured classic movies, many of them made in other countries. I
saw that they were going to have a series of Soviet films made of
classics of Russian literature. I took a program. As I walked
further I stopped at a flower shop, and bought a flower bouquet.

     When I called Laurel at her office there was chilliness in
her voice that I did not like at all. When I mentioned the series
on Soviet movies, she said she had become busy of late, and did
not have time for it. When I asked if she would be interested in
something later, she said, "No I really don't think so Roger.
I've gotten back in touch with my boy friend, and don't think it
would be a good idea."

     When I did not say anything, Laurel said, "I'm sorry Roger."

     "Don't let it bother you," I said before quietly hanging up
the phone. I looked around quickly. Fortunately, no one had heard
our conversation.

     I walked back to my room, entered, and locked the door. The
flower bouquet was on the table in the middle of the room. I sat
down at the chair in front of the table. "It don't mean nothin',"
I said softly. That was the sardonic sentence we would sometimes
say in Vietnam when something reminded us that nothing we
attempted mattered. Women want to marry up, not down. What was I
thinking?

     I wanted to throw the flower bouquet away, but my room was
fairly barren. On the wall was a glass case with my medals from
the Marine Corps. Actually, they were not the medals I wore at
the bar in National Airport. I threw those away at the Dewey
Canyon 3 demonstrations. Six months later I missed them. I wrote
a letter to the Pentagon telling them I had lost them, and asking
for replacements. I received them with no questions asked. On the
wall there was also a photograph of my parents and me, and one of
several friends of mine including Steve Reed, and me in Vietnam.
There were also two book shelves.

     I wanted to go to a bar on 18th street and get blitzed. I
thought it would be a better idea to calm down for a day. No
matter what else happened to me I had to go to work every night
and smile at the customers.

     The next day after a nap I walked to a bar on 18th street
where I knew the bar tender. He had fought in Vietnam with the
Army. Sometimes we talked about the War. Usually we tried to
forget. When I walked in, the television was on, but no one was
watching it. "Hi, Bill," I said. Is it OK if I play the jukebox?"

     "Sure Roger," Bill said, before turning down the television
and opening the cash register and giving me several quarters.
"Here. You make good selections." I played several songs, sat at
the counter, and ordered a glass of wine.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgP79Q5rQQY

     "Did you watch the game last night?" Bill asked.

     "No, I missed it."

     "You didn't miss much. You're not much of a football fan are
you?"

     "I watch it when I come here. I like boxing. Keep your eye
on Sugar Ray Leonard. He will make boxing history."

     "He already has a lot of fans in this bar."

     I wanted to talk to Bill about Laurel. Women seem to have an
easy time talking about that kind of thing. Men want their
friends to think that they only problem they have with women is
one of selection. I don't know why. We don't want to think that
of anyone else.

     I tipped generously, and left.

     A year passed. The flower bouquet, which had symbolized
happiness and hope for me, dried and turned brown. I never threw
it away.

     I did not go back to the Italian restaurant. One evening I
did go to the Potter's House. I sat next to the bas relief of St.
Peter portraying him as he realized that he had just denied Jesus
three times as Jesus told him he would. The sound system was
playing Joan Baez singing "Wayfaring Stranger."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cvpF-49dEE

     While I was sitting there drinking an espresso Professor
Armington walked in, and sat next to the window. I did not really
want to talk to him, and wished I could have left through the
rear exit. The Potter's House does not have a rear exit.

     When Professor Armington noticed me, I had no choice but to
walk over to his table. He stood up. We shook hands. "Professor
Armington, how do you do?" I asked.

     "Quite well, Roger. Please sit down. I had hoped to see more
of you."

     "I would have enjoyed it too," I said, before asking,
because there was nothing else to ask, "How is Laurel?"

     Professor Armington looked serious. "I guess you wouldn't
know. We always knew she had a heart ailment. We never expected
her to live as long as she did. She passed away two months ago."

     "I am sorry to hear about it," I said. "Her boyfriend must
have been devastated."

     Professor Armington looked at me with an expression of vague
understanding. "You were the only one I knew about," he said. "We
wanted to tell you, but we did not know what your address or
phone number was. Before she died she wrote a letter to you. Do
you want it?"

     Trying to control my emotions I said, "Yes of course."

     Professor Armington drove me to his house, which was off
16th Street near Maryland. The house looked much older than the
late nineteenth century row houses next to it. "My house was an
eighteenth century farm house," he explained.

     We walked inside. Everything about Professor Armington's
home indicated age and durability. Over the hearth was a large
photograph of a teenage Laurel, a younger Professor Amington, and
a woman who could have only been Laurel's mother.

     When Professor Armington gave me the sealed envelope he
said, "Laurel is interned in our family mausoleum in Rock Creek
Cemetery. The Armington family used to be economically and
socially prominent in Washington. We lost most of our wealth in
the Panic of 1893, and the rest of it in the Stock Market Crash
of 1929. Fortunately, I have always had a gift for languages. I
was a translator for the Army during the War." He paused for a
moment, before adding for me that that was the Second World War.

     "After the War I got a PhD at Georgetown in Latin and Greek,
and a teaching position there. Laurel got a Master's Degree in
social work there."

     "I want to visit Laurel's grave," I said. "Could you write a
map for me?"

     "Of course," he said, getting a piece of paper. It is easy
to find. Take the main walkway toward the church. Veer toward the
left when the walkway forks. The Armington mausoleum will be past
the church, on the right. It is made of red bricks into the
hillside.

     "I am a member of the congregation at the church. I hope to
see you at church sometime."

     "Which service do you attend?"

     "10:30."

     "I will see you this Sunday."

     "I will look forward to it," Professor Armington said. After
a pause he added, "Don't stay a stranger. This has become a
lonely house for me. After my wife died I still had Laurel."

     We hugged each other gently. Then he drove me to my rooming
house. I felt a vague apprehension about the letter I could not
understood, and did not want to read it quite yet. First I lay it
next to the flower bouquet. Then I thought my room might be
broken into, so I put it in my Bible, and put the Bible back in
the book shelf.

     That night, at the Airport Motel, when I took my nap I
dreamed about Laurel. In my dream we watched Dostoyevsky's Crime
and Punishment at the Circle Theater.

     The month was January. The weather was very cold with a
brisk wind. When I got back to my room I still hesitated to read
Laurel's letter. I got something to eat, and went to sleep. When
I woke up I washed and got dressed. Finally I was ready to read
Laurel's letter.

     I locked the door to my room, and sat at my table, looking
at the envelope next to the flower bouquet. I cut open the
envelope carefully with a knife, and read:

 "Dearest Roger,

     "Ever since I was very young I have known that I would never
grow old..."

     Well, I will not share the entire letter with you. I will
say that she told me she tried never to become involved with
anyone, knowing it could not last. When she saw me at the
Washington Cathedral she sensed a kindred soul. Then she thought
it would be unfair to encourage me. When lying in the hospital
bed she wanted to communicate with me.

     She ended it with, "I have tried not to fall in love with
any man. If I did, he is reading this now."

     I put the letter back into the envelope, and put it on the
table. "It does mean something," I said out loud.

     I put on my Navy pea coat, and a Russian style hat, took the
flower bouquet, and left my rooming house. Soon I was walking
along New Hampshire Avenue to Rock Creek Cemetery. The sky was
overcast. The air was bitterly cold. The wind was over twenty
miles an hour in my face. I had to step carefully to avoid
slipping on a patch of ice from the last snow storm.

     As I approached the necropolis I looked at the grey
tombstones, mausoleums, and statues under the grey sky. I thought
of a poem I remembered:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VMASTIRrEc

Pious Jesus,
Who takes away the sins of the world,
Give them rest.
Lamb of God,
Who takes away the sins of the world,
Give them rest everlasting.

      After I entered the main gate of the cemetery I had an easy
time finding the Armington mausoleum.  I looked into the door.
Most of the plaques were old and difficult to read. I could read:

Ellen Armington
1925 - 1973

and

Laurel Armington
1954 - 1979

     I do not cry often. I cried when my parents died. I cried
when a madevac helicopter disappeared into the sky with a body
bag containing what remained of Steve Reed.

     I cried now. "Laurel," I said into the mausoleum. "I could
have made your last year a happy one."

     There was no container for flowers, so I left Laurel's
bouquet on the ground next to the door of the mausoleum. I walked
out of the main gate as an attendant was preparing to close and
lock it. The sun had set. The wind had died down. Snow was
beginning to fall.


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